CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Lindsey Vonn overcame one crash to make it to the Olympic start line. The second kept her from the finish.
Vonn had to be airlifted off the Olimpia della Tofane course after crashing about 13 seconds into her downhill run Sunday, Feb. 8 at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. The US Ski & Snowboard Team issued a statement at 5 p.m. local time that Vonn, “sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians.”
Vonn’s crash in Sunday’s downhill race had nothing to do with the ACL she tore eight days ago, when she crashed during the final downhill race before the Olympics. Instead, Vonn hooked the fourth gate with her right arm, and it spun her off-balance. She fought to regain control, but her legs had already splayed and her weight quickly shifted to the back of her skis, pulling her backward. She fell to her right and then tumbled head first in the snow.
“Things just happen so quick in this sport,” U.S. teammate Bella Wright said after the race. “It looked like Lindsey had incredible speed out of that turn, and she hooked her arm and it’s just over just like that.”
The three-time Olympic medalist remained prone in the snow, and she could be heard wailing in pain. The gasps and groans from fans faded into shocked silence as medics worked on her. Vonn remained on the course for approximately 13 minutes before being loaded into a helicopter.
About 18 minutes after the crash, the helicopter slowly began flying toward Cortina. “Let’s let Lindsey Vonn hear us!” the American announcer said as the chopper flew away with her, and the crowd cheered and applauded.
American teammate Breezy Johnson, who took the early lead and held on for her first ever Olympic medal, covered her eyes with her right hand upon witnessing Vonn’s terrifying tumble.
“I can’t imagine the pain that she’s going through. And it’s not the physical pain. We can deal with physical pain, but the emotional pain is something else,” said Johnson, who missed the Beijing Olympics after a crash in Cortina four years ago. “I wish her the best and I hope that this isn’t the end.”
Johnson said in the medalist’s news conference that Vonn’s coach had told her Vonn was cheering for her from the helicopter.
“I hope for the best for her,” Johnson said. “My heart aches for her. It’s such a brutal sport sometimes.”
It’s the second time in as many weeks Vonn has left a mountaintop on a chopper. She fully ruptured her left ACL, sustaining meniscus damage and bone bruising, in a downhill crash on Jan. 30, in the final World Cup event prior to the start of the Olympics.
A statement from the US Ski & Snowboard team said Vonn would be “evaluated by medical staff.” Johan Eliasch, president of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, said he didn’t know the severity of her injury, but that it would determine whether she was taken to a local hospital or one further away.
Eliasch called the crash “tragic” but cautioned against blaming Vonn’s knee injury for it.
“Knowing Lindsey, she knows her body, she knows her injuries, and she knows also what she’s capable of,” Eliasch added. “Everybody had such high expectations. And yeah, it’s tragic, but again, it’s ski racing and accidents do happen.”
Vonn is 41, and also skiing with a partial replacement of her right knee. She had dominated the sport before the crash, making the podium in all five downhill races this season and winning two of them.
Despite the latest injury, Vonn was determined to race at her fifth and final Olympics. She said her knee felt stable and strong, and she’s spent the last week doing intense rehab, pool workouts, weight lifting and plyometrics. She skied both training runs, posting the third-fastest time in the second run before it was cancelled because of fog and snow.
Vonn’s sister Karin Kildow was at the course today for the downhill and spoke to NBC reporters during their live broadcast:
“I mean that definitely was the last thing we wanted to see and it happened quick and when that happens, you’re just immediately hoping she’s okay. And it was scary because when you start to see the stretchers being put out, it’s not a good sign,” Kildow said. “But she really … she just dared greatly and she put it all out there. So it’s really hard to see, but we just really hope she’s okay.
“She does have all of her surgeons and her PT staff here and her doctors, so I’m sure they’ll give us a report and we’ll meet her at whatever hospital she’s at.”
American skier Jackie Wiles reacts to Lindsey Vonn crash
“Watching Lindsey go down from the start was pretty awful,” said Jackie Wiles, after finishing fourth in the downhill. “I mean, we have such a sisterhood. I mean, we travel with each other on the road. We’re a family and to watch someone that you care about so much, it really sucks, and my heart kind of just broke for her in that moment.
“But that’s the inherent risk of this sport. I feel like we all know what can happen and I think we all have a lot of love and respect for each other because with the inherent risk. And yeah, it sucks when it’s someone you care about so much.”
American Breezy Johnson wins gold in downhill
American Breezy Johnson has conquered Cortina.
The same course that ended her Olympic dreams in 2022 delivered gilded immortality Sunday, as she collected the first medal of any kind in any sport for Team USA in these Games.
Johnson, who skied sixth in the lineup, won gold medal with a time of 1:36.10.
She became the first American woman not named Mikaela Shiffrin or Lindsey Vonn to win an individual medal in Alpine skiing since Julia Mancuso in 2014 (bronze in super combined).
Germany’s Emma Aicher took silver, and Italy’s Sofita Goggia took bronze. American Jackie Wiles finished just off the podium in fourth.
